This is a site dedicated to educators and covers topics related to teaching, technology and notebooking in the elementary classroom.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Science Centers - 2nd Grade

I worked with a second grade teacher this past Friday during one of her TAP observations. She had set her lesson up in science stations and asked me to oversee and troubleshoot the computer station if needed.

I really liked her stations because they incorporated reading, writing, technology and a hands-on activity. All stations were about 10 minutes in length.

My favorite part of the lesson was her accountability sheet that the students took from station to station. You can find a copy of the sheet HERE.

The lesson was on Arctic Habitats.

Station 1 – Read and response. Students read a sheet that she got from Enchanted Learning about reindeer and they had to answer the questions that went with it. When they were done, or had to move stations, they stapled their reindeer sheet to the accountability sheet.

Station 2 – Computer station. Students watched a six minute BrainPop Jr. video and took the quiz that went with it. They recorded their quiz score on the sheet that traveled with them. You can sign up for a free trial of BrainPop Jr. but we are lucky in the state of South Carolina because Discus is now linked to BrainPop Jr. (your local library or media specialist should have the Discus login for BrainPop Jr.).

Station 3 – The instructor worked with that group completing a blubber experiment station. Students had rubber gloves on, one covered in lard, one not. They put their hands in freezing cold water and discussed how it felt and importance of blubber in arctic animals. When they were done they got a stamp from the teacher in that block.

Station 4 – Reading station. The teacher had five polar bear fact cards and the students had to read through the information and list three things they learned about polar bears through their reading.

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About this Blog

I started this blog many years ago as a classroom science teacher with the express purpose of sharing notebooking ideas with other educators. I have since moved into a technology coach position within our district so this site has morphed into a general teaching blog. Basically anything that I see or do in schools that I think is pretty cool gets highlighted here. If you are visiting to find notebooking information please look at my earlier posts. I have tried to label all my posts so information is easier to find...so, when in doubt look at the labels. As always, if you have any question please feel free to email me and I will do my best to help!